Sunday, September 9, 2012

Elizabeth Warren & the Bible

So what do we make of Elizabeth Warren quoting Jesus in her speech at the Democratic convention last Wednesday night?


http://swampland.time.com/2012/09/06/democrats-favorite-biblical-passage-matthew-25/

It was a stirring moment in a great speech.  I didn't hear anyone else in either convention quoting the Bible, but I missed quite a few speeches. 

"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me," she said (Matthew 25:40).

"The passage teaches about God in each of us, that we are bound to each other and we are called to act, not to sit, not to wait, but to act all of us together," she explained, contrasting Democratic support for programs like the Affordable Care Act vs. Republican opposition.

"The Republican vision is clear -- ``I got mine. The rest of you are on your own."' she had said earlier.  See the full transcript:   http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/05/transcript-elizabeth-warren-speech-at-dnc/


Her views at greater length were presented by Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne in his blog after he interviewed her in August.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/elizabeth-warren-on-health-care-and-religion/2012/08/23/5c509058-ed6c-11e1-9ddc-340d5efb1e9c_blog.html


My only question: why was she quoting the King James translation, published in 1611?

She identified as a Methodist and a Sunday school teacher in the speech,  Most Methodists I know are not wedded to the KJV, and most Sunday school teachers use a version kids can understand. 

Did she choose the KJV because the most conservative Christians think the Bible was handed to us by King James and carved on stone tablets? 

In other words, the Bible doesn't sound like the Bible to most people unless it's in Shakespearean English?

Or is she just not familiar enough with the Bible in all of its modern translations to quote one of them?

"Brethren?"  I mean, really!  What Bible has she been reading for the last twenty years?

Sisters, we need to send her a copy of The Inclusive Bible--or at least the "New" RSV, done in 1989. 

In any case, she's a courageous and intelligent woman running for senator in Massachusetts.

Warren has an impressive record in setting up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, passed by Congress and signed into law in 2010.

Her possible nomination as the agency's permanent director "was strongly opposed by financial institutions which had criticized Warren as overly aggressive in pursuing regulations, and by the Republican members of Congress," reports Wikipedia. 

Republicans later blocked the appointment of Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, crippling the agency's functioning for a while.

As she summarized it in her speech, "I had an idea for the consumer protection agency to stop the rip offs.  Now the big banks did not like this, and they marshalled one of the biggest lobbying forces on earth to destroy the agency before it ever saw the light of day." 

"By the way, just a few weeks ago that little agency caught one of the biggest credit card companies cheating its customers," she continued. 

What a committed fighter!  We need Elizabeth Warren in the Senate--let's do all we can to support her.

Here's her website for donations:
  http://my.elizabethwarren.com/page/s/join-elizabeth-warren?source=BPI_GS_BrandedUS-S_EW-Exact_Elizabeth%20Warren







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